"In the heart of the Napa Valley, a vineyard produces fine Cabernet Sauvignon with virtually no help from laborers."

"The 40-acre “touchless vineyard” was established by Kaan Kurtural, a University of California Cooperative Extension specialist who has devoted much of his career to improving production efficiency in vineyards as labor shortages have worsened." So begins an article by Tim Hearden on capitalpress.com, "the West's Ag Website".

The UC Davis Viticulture and Enology extension committee had a busy start to the year, with a booth and reception at the Unified Symposium in January and two “On the Road” educational events: one in Santa Cruz in February and another in Temecula during the first week of March.

FST Chair Dr. Linda Harris was recently interviewed by NBC Bay Area for a story about food safety and the confusion consumers have around food expiration dates.

In addition to being a Cooperative Extension Specialist for the Department of Food Science and Technology, Dr. Harris is also the Co-Principal Investigator and Chair of the Western Center for Food Safety.

In the Fall of 2017, Dr. Hildegarde Heymann stepped into the huge shoes left by Dr. Linda Bisson, who recently retired. Linda taught the VEN 124L winemaking course for over thirty years and had placed her stamp all over it. When Hildegarde found out that she was designated to teach the class she realized that no one expected her to continue the course in exactly the same fashion.

On behalf of the Department of Food Science and Technology, we want to thank everyone for helping make Picnic Day a success!

Yet again we had a popular exhibit with long but friendly lines of guests waiting as students handed out vanilla ice cream with dark chocolate chips. The ice cream lasted long, throughout the entire duration of Picnic Day from 10am to 2:30pm. We even handed ice cream out past our official end time until the volunteer shifts ended. All in all, approximately 3,500 servings were distributed!

Renee Berkus is a fourth-year undergraduate student in the Department of Viticulture and Enology. She is from Santa Barbara, California where she has returned home the last three summers to spend time with family and gain harvest experience. Renee’s family is made up of architects, contractors, and interior designers, so she grew up deeply immersed in artistic work. She hadn't been exposed to the wine industry until she came to UC Davis and became surrounded by it.